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“The Exile’s Song:” A Poetic Ode By a Homesick Eastern Shoreman

Aside from having a beard for the ages, Littleton Purnell Bowen was a lawyer, historian, preacher, and poet. Born in Worcester County, Md. in 1833, he did his early schooling at the Berlin (Md.) Academy, graduating in 1851. He later earned a law degree, but abandoned that career to become a Presbyterian minister. Early on, Bowen served as a pastor in Lewes, Del. and Pocomoke…
March 31, 2020
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Somerset Journey: The Steak Knife Was Invented in Crisfield, and That Story Begins on Marumsco Creek

The story behind the creation of the steak knife in your kitchen drawer involves a bit of manufacturing ingenuity, but there is more to it. Think romantic sleigh rides, a devastating fire, steadfast religious faith, and then—a Christmas gift from a friend that changes everything. This Somerset County, Md. tale begins with a farm boy who hated farm work. He much preferred puttering around in…
March 31, 2020
Way Back Machine

WAY BACK MACHINE: The Great Poplar Island Bootleg Booze Factory of 1929

On a Sunday afternoon in May 1929, Talbot County (Md.) Sheriff Thomas L. Faulkner and a team of local officers and federal agents sailed from Lowe’s Wharf, just up the mainland from Tilghman Island, heading past storied old Poplar Island and into the open Chesapeake Bay. But then the boat spun around and headed back for the island from the north. Poplar Island was a…
March 28, 2020
Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “The stately looking steamboat … cautiously, almost stealthily edged her way into the locks” of the C&D Canal.

In 1881, the Wilmington (Del.) Morning News published one writer’s eloquent account of his steamboat journey from the old city of New Castle through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and on across the Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore. Here are some highlights: Steamboats ran on the bays and rivers of Delmarva for a century and a half, from 1813 until 1962. This account of one brief…
March 28, 2020
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Inspiring Journey: “Black Harry” Hosier’s Climb from Slavery and Illiteracy to America’s “Greatest Orator”

We are all born with gifts. We all strive in our own way to nurture and share those gifts. Harry Hosier faced longer odds than any of us in this regard. He was born into slavery. He was illiterate. But he managed nonetheless to carve a path through life that saw him seize every opportunity to put his God-given gifts—a prodigious memory and a flair…
March 23, 2020
Way Back Machine

About That 1945 Day When Baseball Hall of Famer Branch Rickey Went Fishing on the Choptank River

Fred “Fritz” Lucas was a baseball man through and through. The New Jersey native toiled for teams in nine different minor-league cities during the 1920s and 1930s. He had a proverbial cup of coffee with the big-league Philadelphia Phillies in 1935, getting 34 at-bats as a pinch hitter and reserve outfielder. He returned to the minors the next year, but his time on the playing…
March 17, 2020
Way Back Machine

A Marydel Whodunnit, 1909: Amateur Actor Fatally Poisoned on Stage during Show for Charity

The Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 11, 1909: “The little town of Marydel, , was thrown into an intense state of excitement this morning when it became known that Charles L. Pippin, a local businessman, was dead. The cause of his death was poison in a glass of wine which he drank during the amateur performance of a play in which he was one of the actors on…
February 17, 2020
Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Maybe we needed a whole building because we had so many liars.”

Lots of towns have had famous “liar’s benches” over the years--a corner in a store or post office where old men gather and tell tall tales from days gone by. But in Trappe on Maryland's Eastern Shore, they had much more than a bench--a whole building there was set aside for the fine art of small-town storytelling. The description below of what days back in…
January 29, 2020
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QUOTE OF THE DAY: Muskrat Recipes “Worthy of an Epicure” from 1943

In the introduction to a 1943 “wildlife leaflet” titled, “Recipes for Cooking Muskrat Meat,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offers these reassurances: “In modern times many persons have eaten the flesh of the muskrat and relished it. Some have declared that it is game worthy of an epicure.” And: “The recipes given here are typical of the many suitable for cooking this meat. When…
December 30, 2019